


when the weather gets hot

by philthestone



Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, be the soft tender content u want to see in the world, cw for vague gentle allusions to faith storyline, ive been thinking about spring a lot and also claires herb garden, not quite a fic about babies but my friend sennen would approve which tells u enough, shoutout to sam heughans iconic modern au opinions (the monkey emojis)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23756227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Claire and Jamie and a vegetable garden, and all the joy and love and heartbreak in life.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 23
Kudos: 105





	when the weather gets hot

**Author's Note:**

> i planted seeds for the new growing year and kept thinking about claire and her little garden, and soft good things. join me next week for another game of "phil describes jamies modern day occupation as vaguely as humanly possible bc she Can Not Decide What The Hell It Is".
> 
> title is from hozier's "in a week" (sometimes u just have to think about “in a week” and jamieclaire and lose ur mind) and reviews are love

They plant a vegetable garden one uncommonly sunny day in mid-March.

The sunshine is a washed-out yellow, the colour of early spring, but for the first time since September’s end Claire can actually feel it on her skin when she pulls her sleeves up. Jamie is sprawled inelegantly on the porch beside her, keeping her company as she places each little seed in its delicate paper container with surgical precision. He’s alternating between reading her old grade school copy of Virgil --  _ pretentious _ , Claire informs him, without qualm, from under the floppy brim of the straw hat she’s using to contain her hair -- and napping. 

Claire thinks he looks somewhat like an overlarge cat.

He lolls his head upside down over the seat of their lone porch chair when she brings this up, such that his moppish curls, coppery in the pale sunlight, expand under gravity’s pull. 

“I wouldnae mind turning into a cat,” he tells her.

“You’re going to break our poor chair, sitting on it the wrong way round.”

“Dinna listen to her,” Jamie tells the chair, marking his page with a bookmark he seems to have produced out of thin air. His face is pink from being upside down. Claire moves the planter labelled  _ lavender _ to the back of her tray and pulls forward a new one. “Yer a right capable contraption.”

He pats a textured metal chair leg with one hand.

“I can’t believe I married a man who uses bookmarks,” says Claire, instead of entertaining the chair’s feelings or any erstwhile yearning for feline-related transformation. Jamie frowns at her, upside down. It’s patently a ridiculous look, specifically on him.

“Right, I forgot. Claire Beauchamp, heathen woman --”

“Claire  _ Fraser _ , actually. You’re affiliated with my Satanic ways now.”

“The day I  _ fold  _ the corner of a page  _ down _ ,” says Jamie, grave as a funeral -- impressive that he can achieve it, considering his afore-mentioned ridiculous look -- “‘tis the day ye can run me through yerself.”

“Go back to napping,” she tells him, holding up a flimsy paper package labelled  _ mint _ . She shakes it a bit; it makes a delightful little  _ shk shk _ noise, so she smiles, as she has been doing more recently, and feels the warmth of the sun on the apples of her cheeks. “I don’t want you influencing our baby seeds with your dramatics.”

“I wasnae napping. I was readin’ from yer pretentious wee book.”

“Oh, my mistake.”

“Which is a classic in the annals of literature,  _ by  _ the way. A rich, cultural artefact --”

“Pretentious,” repeats Claire, sing-song.

“D’ye need help with the planters?”

She pauses, considers this. Taps the corner of the mint packet with a finger covered in dirt. It, too, is delightfully warm -- the dirt, not the mint -- and she keeps resisting the urge to stick both hands in the pile of it in front of her and just leave them there. It’s not mechanical work, but it’s easy, and free-flowing. Something to sooth. Even the slipperiness of the permanent marker she’s using to label things, covered in fertilizer by now, feels bright and gentle as the pale March sun. Bright and gentle as his presence beside her -- steady, like it’s felt for always. 

“No,” Claire decides. “I’ve got it handled. Unless you really want to.”

Jamie hums. “Nah. I can read out loud, though.”

“You’re going to give the seeds  _ ideas _ \--”

“Claire,” he says, laughing with his whole self. The chair creaks under the weight of something which must be happiness, or maybe just her husband’s bulky adult man self, which it is not made for holding upside down. He says her name like he always does, with that mix of joy and reverence and tender, unbridled affection. “Ye ken those wee plants’ll do whatever ye tell ‘em to.”

“Out of fear,” agrees Claire, shoulders and sun hat shaking with the quiet mirth of the comfortable joke.

“Out’ve love.”

She pauses, touches one dirty finger to her cheek. It’s a soft action -- like a reflex. There’ll be dirt on her face now, she’s sure. She can feel the sun still, on her skin and against the heavy, warming metal of the ring on her finger.

“I’m glad you don’t think I’ll be putting the fear of God in my herb garden,” she says.

“Ach,” says Jamie, ruining the moment. “We just agreed ye to be a heathen, Sassenach.”

“Bookmarks are  _ impractical _ \--”

“ _ Pretentious _ \--” he parrots back at her, a terrible imitation.

She flings a clump of soil at him, and then bemoans the newly-dirtied state of their porch chair, and then wishes they could stay out here with their gardening tools and sunlight and classical literature until tomorrow morning, when her next shift at the hospital starts. They can’t; it’ll be getting dark around six, and then cold in the dark, and already she can hear Jamie’s stomach growling in a lame plea for some sort of lunch. 

But the thought of it -- the idea of escaping into this contentment. There’s a wetness at the corners of her eyes, but she runs her fingers back through the soft peatiness of the potting soil and thinks that it’s the good kind, now.

**

They find a spot on the other side of the porch to dig up for the transplanting. It’s a small little thing, but has four corners and a set of nice, straight-backed, even wooden poles stuck through it, keeping it all upright. Claire is terribly proud of the whole thing. She keeps fighting the urge to place her hands on her hips and stand barefoot in the too-long, wet grass of their backyard, solely for the purpose of surveying her little plot with a great deal of self-satisfaction.

“Ye look like the benevolent queen of a faery kingdom,” Jamie informs her, the afternoon she finally succumbs to it, emerging from the house halfway through pulling his necktie off and with a piece of toast stuck between his teeth. 

“How was work,” says Claire. “Also, we’re officially --”

“-- out of bread, aye.” Mouthful swallowed, remaining toast in hand, successfully migrated from back door to garden and  _ hello _ kiss placed squarely on Claire’s mouth. “I ken. I’ll go in a bit.”

“You don’t have to go tonight,” Claire says.

“We’ve been needing eggs as well, and oatmeal.”

“Ah,  _ oatmeal _ .”

His responding hum blends into hers. Claire breathes deeply, palms hovering over his shoulders but not touching because of the combination of his nice work shirt and the drying dirt painting her hands. April’s been a wet month; the soil is half muck, thick and clay-like. It matches the colour of her hair, Jamie says. Currently that hair is wrapped away in a yellow kerchief that she dug out from one of their collection of just-moved-in boxes that still haven’t been unpacked. The flat is big enough for them to remain where they are without posing too much inconvenience, but just the thought of the half-packed state they’re existing in sometimes makes Claire feel like she’s suffering from ringworm. Other times -- when she’s dead on her feet from a shift at the hospital or elbows deep in the earth of their tiny backyard, or, occasionally, when her husband’s clever mouth is doing truly delightful things to her -- tidiness and organization become irrelevant social constructs.

It’s easier just to leave them be. 

“Do I really look like a faery queen?” Claire wonders.

“Weel,” eyebrows lifting and head tilting in consideration. “Wee Jem was tellin’ me so this morning over the phone,  _ Auntie Claire _ , so it must be true.”

“Ah, it must,” Claire agrees, a softened smile lifting the tops of her cheeks. It’s not quite as teasing as it was a moment before, but it is there, in the ways that count. “And what does  _ Uncle Jamie _ think?”

There are clouds gathering overhead. It will likely rain again soon, and they should go inside -- Jamie to go on his bread expedition and Claire to wash off the lingering traces of the ICU, and her gardening. She sways a little, feet digging into the wet earth, and watches his eyes light up with the summer-sky colour of a good tease.

“I dinnae think faery queens fart in their sleep, Sassenach.”

“I  _ will _ throw my trowel at you.”

“Yer shift went alright then?”

“I do not  _ fart _ \--” He’s laughing, dodging her jabbing fingers easily. She notices that he’s barefoot like she is, the cuffs of his pants rolled up like he planned ahead once he arrived home from work, to find her out here in their little corner of springtime. Solidarity in the smallest of things, Claire thinks, and then shrieks as he loops his arms around her to swing her dramatically around. They fall flat on their arses in front of the basil plants; immediately, she can feel the soak of the wet earth through the seat of her pants. Jamie’s nice trousers are going to be a wreck, but she supposes he  _ did _ bring this upon himself, so she lets it go, into the cool-warm humidity of the April air around them.

“I’ve left Murtagh inside,” he informs her, shameless about the topic change. “He may wither an’ die if we do no’ attend to him.”

“He’ll survive on our last remnants of bread,” Claire says, shifting on the ground. Mud squelches under their toes. For the first time in a long while, the lightness sparked in her chest lingers.

She kisses him again. “Work?”

Jamie’s face falls forward and plants itself neatly into the opening between Claire’s shoulder and neck. There’s a garbled noise.

“English please.”

“Tha’  _ was _ English.”

“Dougal?” 

“Dougal.” 

Claire sighs in the direction of her budding tomatoes and wonders just how regularly a man can plot to have his nephew accidentally fired. 

“You?” asks Jamie, still into the haven of her collarbone.

“Seven broken fibulas in one day,” says Claire, listing off. “Would have been entertaining if they hadn’t been so gory. Geillis commandeered four hospital beds as a particularly canty sea captain might. And you nearly gave our student nurse a cerebral aneurysm with your inappropriate texts.”

“My texts are all verra gentlemanly, Claire.”

“Yes, well, poor Mary couldn’t look me in the eye for the next six hours. Stop laughing --  _ stop _ \--”

There is really nothing else for it; she’s falling to pieces herself, laughter crawling out from inside her chest like a live thing and making her keel over full bodied into his shoulder. Jamie’s head rolls back from her neck to accommodate her. She waits until the intensity of it has died down, blended away into the warmth of him pressed against her, and the damp of silliness welling in the corners of her eyes has lost its heat.

They sit there for a moment, watching the gentle breeze flutter through the fluttering leaves of the delicate growing things in their garden. A sound calls from inside the house.

“Did ye swallow the eedjit, Claire? He went out t’get ye ten minutes ago!”

Jamie’s hiding his grin in the fabric of her half-undone kerchief -- she can feel it. 

“You really did leave Murtagh inside, then.”

“Oh, aye.”

She pokes him, once, and then heaves herself to her feet. From above, a few droplets of rain have been let loose, breaking delicate and cool against Claire’s skin as she extends a hand to tug him up with her. “He may groan at how muddy we are.”

“It’s  _ our _ house,” protests Jamie, but they troop dutifully inside, still laughing even as the rain begins to fall.

**

July brings long evenings that offset the strange hours of hospital work. Claire arrives home as the purples of twilight are starting to emerge, and makes her way to the backyard to find her husband lying on his back in the grass in front of the garden. He’s in a thin t-shirt and ratty shorts that should probably have been thrown away three years ago, barefoot again, and he has his work tablet propped up against his stomach, skimming away at something.

Claire takes a minute to toe her shoes off on the porch and breathe in deeply. The day has been long in the way some days just  _ are _ \-- there was a pileup along the A71, and a child with a collapsed lung brought in that morning, and hot coffee spilled over her scrubs only an hour into her shift. She feels the heaviness of exhaustion fogging her mind, dulling her senses.

_ come out back when u get home _ , read Jamie’s text.

Her feet pad across the tangled grass of the backyard -- thick enough to hold the damp, even in the sudden shock of heat they’ve had. She lays down beside him wordlessly, and buries her face into his shoulder.

“Ye missed a great and historic turn of events,” he tells her, still focused on the tablet. She can feel the rumble of his words against her cheek, vibrating under the sturdy flesh and bone of him. She breathes again, smelling the sharpness of the plant stems that bleeds into the floral freshness of the herbs and mixes with the heavy smell of damp earth. It loosens something in her lungs.

“Oh?”

“Fergus has decided he wishes to be a sea captain.”

“Do those still exist?” Claire wonders, rolling her head back to convey her sincere curiosity the proper way.

“Says there’s too much maths involved in runnin’ the world’s most successful business enterprise -- which was, of course, the original plan.”

“Oh, yes,” Claire remembers, staring up at the purpling sky. “Of course. Was this discussion had today after school?”

Her unassuming husband makes an assenting sound; Claire feels the corners of her mouth twitch, despite her lingering exhaustion. 

“So _I’ll keep an eye on the laddie_ _just tonight_ has evolved, has it?”

Jamie’s offended noise does the rest of the work for the heaviness of exhaustion in her chest, and in a moment Claire is filled with a low, easing thrum of vibrancy, pulsing between her shoulder blades and the heady smell of the earth. “Tha’s no’ what I sound like  _ at all _ \--”

“ _ Is _ it not now --”

“An’ secondly -- I  _ said _ \--”

“You  _ said _ you’d be happy to babysit Suzette’s nephew once whilst she worked the night shift and you  _ have _ very consentingly acquired a new shadow, dearest.”

He finally lets whatever he was working on drop back against his tummy and turns to face her, pursing his lips the way he does when Claire has said something absolutely correct that he does not want to admit to. His left eyebrow twitches. The overgrown grass tickles both of their faces; she can see a few blades trapped against his long eyelashes, over the cheekbone. 

“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s very endearing that you keep kidnapping our neighbour’s ward.”

“Long day?” he asks, solemnly, despite the fact that he’s obviously fighting a smile.

“ _ Ugh _ ,” says Claire, closing her eyes. Then she opens them, because the vibrancy is still there. She thinks of her conversation with Jenny that morning before her shift started, and the way little Maggy spent the whole time begging to be allowed to talk to her Auntie Claire in the background of the call. She’s been thinking of it all day, in a specific sort of way, and the memory of it hasn’t been the ache she’s used to. Just a gentle reminder. “God bless Dr. Hildegard, anyway. Were you working on --”

“The Mill project.” Jamie releases a long sigh that reverberates through her own arm. “Aye. We’re makin’ something’ of it, slowly. Ian had some braw ideas for the layout.”

“Mmm.”

They lapse in a gentle silence. Claire can hear a bird somewhere -- probably among the trees ringing the back of the garden. Or perhaps a few houses down.

“You know we still haven’t unpacked three of our boxes,” Claire declares, into the quietude.

“We also havenae mowed the lawn. ‘Tis starting to look a bit like a witch’s garden.”

“Ugh,” says Claire again.

“Ye ken I love that about ye, Sassenach. Yer incredible way with words.”

“It  _ is _ one of my many talents -- along with gardening, which I will remind you I am also very good at --”

“But no’ good at mowing the grass --”

“I’ll have you know,  _ Mister _ Fraser --” his arm has hooked under her waist to tug her over, and onto him -- “That’s your favorite part of me, I think.”

“Yer neglect of the non-vegetable foliage?” He looks distinctly incredulous. The abandoned tablet is wedged between her ribs and his, sliding against the material of her tank-top in a strange, grounding sensation. Warm and cool and slick at intervals. “Tha’s most definitely no’ my favorite part of ye, Claire.”

“Right,” says Claire, not missing a beat. “I forgot; my husband is an arse man --”

“Ah, dinnae put it like that --”

“A  _ man  _ of the  _ arse  _ \--” 

Jamie rolls them over such that the tablet slides across her ribs and thumps into the damp un-mowed lawn. They both shriek -- or maybe it’s only her, the sound let out full and unmediated -- a mix of foolish laughter and wandering hands and the dragging of tired limbs, aimless at the end of a long day. He steadies them, shoulder braced against the ground. His curls are falling forward, hanging low over the hawkish slope of his nose, such that the very tips of them tickle the edges of her face; her own are spread out in the grass, slipping from the sensible work bun she had wrangled them into that morning. She can feel the vibrations in his arms and legs, tangled against hers, as he laughs. Despite any logistical complexity his palms have seemed to migrate such that they rest at the very base of her back.

Claire raises a triumphant eyebrow at him.

“Ye’ll scandelize yer vegetable bairns with that kind’ve talk,  _ a nighean, _ ” says Jamie, shamelessly dragging the palms downwards.

“They’re not real children, Jamie.” 

It jumps out, present but not much more -- like her memory of little Margaret. Jamie stills immediately. His teasing grin fades into something softer, more solid and intangible at once, and the minute stretches; she forgets sometimes how intense his eyes can get, in the right moments. Her arm is still slung over his shoulder.

The scandalously placed hands shift, and one comes up to gently run a knuckle against the curve of her cheek. Claire’s throat burns, just for a moment. Then -- a slow start, but a smile is back, this time all the more breathtaking for the undercurrent of emotion thrumming beneath it.

“I read somewhere,” he says finally, “that they respond to the sound of voices -- yer voice, ye ken, when ye tend them. ‘Tis why some people sing for the wee saplings.”

“You’ve been reading about my plants?” she asks, softer than before.

“Couldna have me doin’ anythin’ to -- to hurt them, somehow, could we? ‘Twas necessary readin’.”

“Jamie,” she says.

“Dinnae think of it, Sassenach. I know.”

A soft breeze brushes the end of a curl against her temple. 

“I have been talking to them, actually,” she says.

“The vegetable bairns? Oh, I’ve heard. Ye sound a bit like a madwoman, out here natterin’ alone --”

“A very respectable madwoman, thank you --”

“A witch’s garden, as I said --”

“One of the many things --”

“I love about ye, Claire, there are so many.”

Always said like a confession, swooping out with such honesty. She moves her hands, soft against the fabric of his shirt -- one to push through the curls covering his neck and one to gently touch his cheek.

It’s enough, just then. Claire’s smile blossom’s like daffodils in sunshine. The clear sky tints darker and twilight fades to evening.

**

It rains on Saturday and Claire spreads her harvest along the kitchen table by the window so that she can linger, and watch the droplets stream down from the trellis and frame her patch of greenery. August has been unusually cold, but the little garden has persevered. She stands, holding herself too carefully against the kitchen counter, and straightens the stems of the bundled herbs. Her fingers flutter over the long velvety sage, the spindly chives, the half-dried chamomile -- and on their other side, the bright, taught skins of tomatoes and cucumbers and string beans, and the small bit of watercress she’s coaxed to life.

The ginger and garlic will have to wait until the frost hits.

“Will ye have memorized the view to the garden by now?” asks Jamie’s voice, quiet in her ear. He’s been at the kitchen table, once more sprawled with impropriety against a chair that does not quite know what to do with him, purportedly reading but probably just listening to the steady patter of rain, and Claire’s soft humming as she sorts through her vegetables. Their last unpacked box was keeping him company, where the laminate met the living room carpet.

She didn’t hear him get up, but she doesn’t startle at his voice. Her fingers fumble with a lone, delicate leaf of a parsley sprig. 

“Weren’t you reading?”

“I  _ am  _ reading,” he says, playful enough, but with a gentle set to his brows. His hand has come to rest comfortably at her waist, fitting over sensibly belted denim. She turns in his grasp and plucks the small bound book held against his chest from his hands, eyebrows raising.

“‘ _ The complete literary works of Robert Henryson, translated from the original Middle Scots by _ \--’”

“Are ye goin’ to read the entire title out to me?” Claire lowers the book just a touch to raise her eyebrows at him more effectively over its top. Jamie’s mouth twitches. “Dinnae say it, Sassenach --”

“I was absolutely  _ not _ going to --”

“ _ Pretentious _ ,” he mimics, once again badly.

Claire says, “I thought Middle Scots scandalized the Catholics,” which is enough to make Jamie laugh, from deep in his chest, and pull her closer.

“What’s wrong, Claire.”

She’s silent for a moment. She can see the window still, from over the soft slope of his arm; it’s bathed in grey, from all the rain, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

“It’ll be winter soon.” 

The kitchen is so small that it has already filled itself with the scent of Claire’s herbs, sharp in a way only fresh plants can be. Jamie says, quietly,

“Not so soon.”

She pulls her head back, to look at him, at the careful set of his eyes and the sharpness of his features and all the little imperfections she can see so up close. His hair has gotten long in the last weeks, is in need of a trim and frizzing a bit at the temples. She thinks absently that they bought that curl-specific conditioner for a  _ reason _ and he always forgets to use it, which is so like a man. 

Then she rubs a finger over a pulse point she seems to have found at his waist, and stretches her arm to wrap it around him; there was a slight rasp to his voice, and she feels sometimes that she does not notice it enough. 

She looks back down and over at the small tomato plants. She’s going to miss the warmth of the dirt, she thinks. 

“It’ll still be there next spring, ye ken. Things’ll warm up, and ye’ll be able to go out an’ coax it back to life, with that -- that loving way ye have. It’ll no’ die and be lost completely. ”

“I know,” she says, and means it.

“Aye,” says Jamie, sweet man that he is. “Alright.”

**

She’s sitting cross-legged in the grass when Jamie finds her.

It isn’t as though she’d be anywhere else, so it’s not really a  _ find _ . More importantly she’d told him, earlier, where she was, when he texted her on his way home in the old temperamental Jeep that Murtagh won’t let them get rid of but probably is killing the environment more than all major corporations on Earth combined.

_ From Jamie 🐵 🐵: should i stop by nandos on the way home _

_ From Jamie 🐵 🐵: wait no, the one at the end block got shut down  _

_ From Jamie 🐵 🐵: federal crime tbh _

_ From Jamie 🐵 🐵: my ancestors didnt die for this _

It was a very normal series of texts, received right at the end of her shift. Geillis had caught her smiling quietly at the phone and left her be, choosing instead to converse with Mrs. Statham with the bloated liver issue about which current TV actor was most ravishable specifically after consumption of a few stiff drinks.

_ To Jamie 🐵 🐵: It was closed for breaking national health regulations and you know it _

_ To Jamie 🐵 🐵: Anyway I went to Tesco yesterday _

_ From Jamie 🐵 🐵: i know _

_ From Jamie 🐵 🐵: will u be home? <3 _

_ To Jamie 🐵 🐵: In the garden, yes. _

_ To Jamie 🐵 🐵: <3 _

The grocery bags of the previous day have long since been put away. Claire thinks that clearing out evidence of her trip was a subconscious bid at making this feel marginally less surreal. It’s why she’s sitting in the garden now, not quite sure what to do with her hands, watching her little perennials re-emerge. 

She hears the porch door click, and Jamie pads over, quiet as only he can be around her. He settles down at her side and mirrors her posture. His feet are bare again, even though the April ground is still cold to the touch.

There’s a bucket of soil at Claire’s knees filled with sweet-smelling earth that she’s meant to spread over the bed, and their faithful watering can by her elbow. A few stems of early seasonal ragweed are spread over her yellow kerchief, along with one or two dandelions, but otherwise everything has remained untouched. Only the slight greenish stain to the tips of her fingers suggest that she’s been doing much out here other than sitting. Above them, the sun is doing its utmost to peek out of the clouds; a few stray rays of white-yellow light fall over her bared ankles. Likely as the day progresses it’ll get a bit warmer.

“Have ye been here all afternoon?” he asks, with a gentle curiosity that doesn’t demand much but hides a deeper, thicker care in his voice.

“Since my shift ended,” says Claire, still looking at the garden. The fence post behind it is mouldering just a little bit, and yellow-brown in colour. “It was an easy day. Look,” she points to the small patch of chamomile peeking out of the thick dark ground. “The perennials are coming back. They’ll be flourishing in a few weeks, once the sun gets stronger. I’ll have to cut some bouquets to take to the girls at work -- Mary always cries when I do it, especially if someone’s thrown up on her that morning. I think Geillis takes them home and uses them for pagan rituals.”

She can hear Jamie’s inhale.

“Aye, that’s my preferred use for basil as well.”

It’s enough to get a laugh out of her, but she still doesn’t turn to look at him until she feels the dry warmth of his palm slide over hers, where her hand is laid open and loose against the cool grass.

Claire closes her eyes, and sucks her lips in, and then leans forward such that the lone rays of spring light land on her cheekbone.

“I can’t believe you’ve  _ known _ .” More of a statement than anything. Jamie smiles -- a small quirk to the corner of his strong mouth. 

“Guessed about a month ago.”

Her head shakes. The laugh that comes out is half disbelieving, thick with moisture. “I can’t understand  _ how _ .” 

“I’d like to think I ken my own wife well enough,” Jamie says, sounding just a bit defensive -- half a joke but half dead serious, and she cannot help the massive lump that surges to the fore of her throat at the knowledge of this, deep-set in her heart as the strongest root may be in rich, heady soil.

“Well, apparently you know her better than she knows herself. I had to take that bloody Tesco test to figure it out.”

“ _ Sorcha _ ,” he says, so softly. All jokes are gone now. The garden is filled with nothing but quietude and the soft  _ shh _ of early springtime breezes sifting through the plants they’ve tended to so carefully over the course of the past year. Claire’s lips, pressed together, tremble. She almost wants to laugh again, half choked with joy and grief at once.

“I mean -- we talked about it. We’ve talked about it, we decided.”

“Aye,” he says, her husband. She thinks abruptly that he has devoted himself to keeping her safe in every way that matters since the moment she first met him, and that in this -- in  _ this _ \-- it has not been any different.

“I still miss her,” Claire whispers.

“Every day,” says Jamie, an extension of her own breath. The place where their hands are connected feels fused together, hot in the cool backyard air. He takes breath again, with that tense carefulness he has at times, like he will fall to pieces if it is not there. “Are ye -- are ye happy, Claire?”

His sleeves and cuffs are rolled back, shirt undone, hair shorn and chin shaven just recently such that he looks younger than he has in a while. His free hand has been picking at the unwitting blades of grass by his thigh; the tips of his fingers are stained now, in a perfect mirror of her own. 

Claire says, “More than anything.” 

Then they are pressed together in embrace, surrounded by the blooming life of the wet garden around them. “Thank ye, Lord,” she hears Jamie say, choked with joy-heavy tears into the nest of her hair.

“We’ll have to find another Nando’s,” Claire tells him, crying shamelessly. “Last time it was all I wanted.”

“Dinnae think Nando’s is the best food for bairns,  _ a nighean _ .” Equally watery, equally comical in its presence among the tears falling down into Claire’s already frizzy hair.

“Says  _ you _ , who is not carrying any bairns,” she says, and then they are laughing once more, the sound carrying up into the April sky above them as the sun grows slowly warmer. 

They’ll have to unpack that last box, Claire thinks, savoring the feeling of it on her skin.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i know i always say modern aus mean happiness only hours but faith informs claire and jamie so profoundly that i couldnt imagine a universe that writes it out. dearly hope i captured the potential tenderness in its afterward with compassion
> 
> hope u all know u are loved in these trying times <3
> 
> update: have exposed myself as a gardener who doesnt know anything abt gardening bc I mixed up annuals and perennials AGAIN;;;;; anyway fixed that thank god


End file.
